World Series Preview

• The Boston Red Sox are going to the World Series for the 11th time overall, 5th time in the last 41 years, and 2nd time in the last 4 years. The Colorado Rockies are making their first appearance in the "Fall Classic."



• The objective rankings that I've been tracking this post-season...
  
  Bill James Playoff Predictor:
  
  1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (BOS - 14)
  2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (BOS - 3)
  3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (COL - 14)
  4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (COL - 12)
  5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (COL - 10)
  6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (BOS - 8)
  7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (COL - 8)
  8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (COL - 7)
  9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (COL - 7)
  10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (BOS - 19)
  11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (BOS - 15)
  12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or
      went further (BOS - 12)
  13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (COL - 12)
  
  BOS - 71, COL - 70
  
  Essentially a tie.
  
  
  Baseball Prospectus "Secret Sauce" rankings:
  (Overall ranking is the sum of rankings in various pitching/defense categories, so lower is better)
  

  Boston (7.5) over Colorado (57)




• The Baseball Prospectus Playoff Odds Report has the Red Sox as the 2nd-least likely series winner for the whole post-season. The unlikeliest? Colorado vs. Philadelphia.



• Nice preview sheet from the Washington Post...



• David Pinto's preview at The Sporting News. And if you haven't already got his Baseball Musings page linked, well, now's the time to do it.



• Chris Lynch doesn't think that the Rockies pitching rotation makes sense.



• Will Carroll's World Series Health Report has everyone , other than Wakefield, ready to go. "If the World Series is supposed to be the two best teams playing their best, we just might get that this year."



• On September 15, if anyone had asked which of these teams were the better team, the question would have been laughable. The Red Sox record was 13 games better, they had scored 50 more runs, and allowed 100 fewer. Since that day, however, the Rockies have taken the field 22 times, and won 21 games. It's a historic run, made more historic by when it occurred. One more loss in the first 15 games of that stretch, and Colorado would have been golfing for the last three weeks.
  
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  Through September 15:
  AL	W	L	RS	RA	Pythagorean %	Pyth Wins	"Luck"
  Boston	90	59	804	602	.629	94	-4
  Colorado	76	72	758	707	.532	79	-3
  Since September 15
  Boston	13	10	133	91	.667	15	-2
  Colorado	21	1	136	67	.785	17	4
  Totals (include playoffs)
  Boston	103	69	937	693	.635	109	-6
  Colorado	97	73	894	774	.566	96	1

  
  
  Here's what we know about winning streaks, however - they all end. I guess we don't know that about this one, but given that every one we've ever seen has ended, I think that this one is a good bet to end, also. The Colorado Rockies, I feel confident in saying, have not lost for the last time in franchise history.
  
  And they should have lost a couple more times in that stretch. Trevor Hoffman had a bad inning at a bad time, and Matt Holliday has still not scored the winning run in that game. Everything that could have gone wrong for the Arizona Diamonbacks, things that they could control and things that they could not, went wrong. So it is safe to say that the Colorado Rockies are probably the hottest team ever to start a World Series.
  
  The question is, does that mean anything? Looking at the course of the season, it seems to me that Boston was a better team than Colorado this year, and not just by a little. I'd rather have Josh Beckett on the mound tonight than anyone else in baseball, and what happens to the Rockies if, following 8 days off, they come out rusty and get shut down? They're 7-0 in the playoffs. What happens to them if they fall behind in a series?
  
  But it's baseball. The fact that streaks end doesn't mean that it will end tonight. I can (and do) think that the Red Sox are the better team, but that doesn't mean that I think that they'll win. I think that they'll play, and they'll win or they'll lose. It's a fools errand to predict the outcome of a 7-game series.



• By VORP, Colorado's offense was better than Boston's. Boston's pitching was better than Colorado's.
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  	Vorp - offense	Vorp - Pitching	Total
  Boston	290.2	244.3	534.5
  Colorado	291.3	198.5	489.8

  
  By EQA, the Red Sox offense is better.
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  Team	EQA	EQR	R-Act	R-Est	Diff
  BOS-A	0.27	783.6	867	904	-37
  COL-N	0.263	750.9	851	842	9

  
  The offense is actually not as close as it looks, at least by VORP, as Boston's numbers include David Ortiz as a DH, and Colorado's includes their pitchers. Boston's runs scored total was significantly less than the offensive component performance would lead you to expect. All told, it looks like the offenses are pretty even.



• Boston's starting pitching looks significantly better. Looking at some of the more advanced Sabrmetric stats from Baseball Prospectus:
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  	NAME	TEAM	LG	YEAR	GS	IP	E(W)	E(L)	SNLVAR	E(Win%)
  Boston	Josh Beckett	BOS	AL	2007	30	200.7	13.7	7.8	6.2	0.636
  Boston	Daisuke Matsuzaka	BOS	AL	2007	32	204.7	13.4	10.7	5.1	0.556
  Boston	Curt Schilling	BOS	AL	2007	24	151	10	7.3	4.3	0.578
  Boston	Jon Lester	BOS	AL	2007	11	63	3.8	3.4	1.1	0.532
  	NAME	TEAM	LG	YEAR	GS	IP	E(W)	E(L)	SNLVAR	E(Win%)
  Colorado	Jeff Francis	COL	NL	2007	34	215.3	14.7	10.7	5.4	0.578
  Colorado	Josh Fogg	COL	NL	2007	29	165.7	9.9	10.7	2.3	0.48
  Colorado	Aaron Cook	COL	NL	2007	25	166	9.1	10	2.8	0.477
  Colorado	Ubaldo Jimenez	COL	NL	2007	15	82	5.3	5.1	1.8	0.513

  
  



• The Baseball Crank thinks that "Boston is clearly the stronger team, but the Rockies' hot streak is just impossible to project one way or another..."



• I repeat - it's a fools errand to predict the outcome of a 7-game series. The better team might win, the better team might lose, and the result of this series won't tell us which is which.